Ukranian tale of “golden eggs” doesn’t have a happy ending

UKRAINE/2015

Sukhopara was beaten up by hired punchmen

Pravona.org

“Back then we had no idea what the consequences of such enormous facility will be, so we hadn’t interfered.” But when the people of Chetvertynivka in Vinnytsia region eventually did get involved, their leader Volodymyr Sukhopara learned about the “persuasive methods” of local rich and powerful men the hard way. Two weeks after a calm protest he had organized, two unknown armed punchers attacked him furiously. Today, Sukhopara knows about who ordered his beating.

Villagers defying an oligarch who poisoned their land endued with beating

“One day Ryaba the Chicken laid a golden egg,” a traditional Slavic folk story tells. “But the elders weren’t happy. For they could not boil the egg, could not eat it since they could not break it,” the fairytale goes. Unrelated it may seem, this story is surprisingly real for the villagers of Ukraine. It very well describes their current situation in a fight against the nature exploitation and money overpowering.

In 2010, the largest industrial chicken production company in Ukraine - Myronivsky Hliboprodukt (MHP) started the construction of a massive poultry farm near the Chetvertynivka village. “They have promised us a steady and well paid jobs for everyone,” Sukhopara explains the very beginning of the whole story. The pledge of new jobs and high wages helped the MHP to get a public support in building of two brigades on the area of 37 ha (91 acres).

When the mistake gets clear

Soon enough the locals realized the outcome of MHP’s production - the soil and water pollution, the decreasing water level in Pivdennyi Buh river, an omnipresent awful smell and enormous enhancement of the traffic passing through the village, which made some houses literally uninhabitable.

And not even the life quality promises were kept. “In 2010 the MHP employed about ten percent of us, that means around 90 people, but nobody stayed there for a long time since the working conditions are not acceptable there,” Sukhopara himself explains the reason that changed people’s mind. So when the MHP came with the suggestion to build more brigades the local community started to raise concerns about the growing negative impact of the factory.

“A local farmer who had leased a land from the villagers signed a underhandedcontract with the MHP for them to use 120 ha of our fields.”

Even though a majority of the village voted against the expansion during the public hearing in October 2015, the secret contract allowed the MHP to start the construction as planned and soon the construction technique started to excavate the fertile black soil (chernozem) of Chetvertynivka.

Swift protest and a bloody retribution

Suchopara quickly organised a protest, informed all concerned parties (the mayor and the MHP representatives) and together with another 300 residents of Chetvertynivka started a blockade of the original two brigades from November 2nd, 2015, letting no trucks in or out. After four days a MHP manager Maxim Pisarev arrived promptly to make an agreement. The MHP will stop the illegal construction, will return all the excavated soil and won’t persecute the participants of the blockade, Pisarev promised.

Two weeks after signing the memorandum on November 21th Volodymyr Suchopara and his wife went to the market in Ladyzhyn to sell their farming products.

“I was sitting in the car. Suddenly two unknown men tapped my window sayingthere was something wrong with my rear wheel. When I stepped out therethey were with iron bars and brass knuckles in their hands…”

It was still dark in the morning when the two punchers attacked Sukhopara. Volodymyr’s wife rushed out from the car and startled the men. Volodymyr ended up with an eyebrow cut, beaten and bruised. “It happened only two weeks after our blockade. I’m 52 years old and I’ve never had any problems like that. I think the men must have been hired by MHP,” Sukhopara expresses his opinion.

If you thought this is an exceptional incident, think again. The same two men attacked a local civil society activist Andriy Skakodub and later that exact year also a Cherkasy region village chairman Vasyl Tkachenko. Mrs. Sukhopara even recognized the men from Tkachenko’s photos and found out their names, but the police did absolutely nothing in the name of justice nevertheless.

Next destination: Europe

The MHP has naturally never admitted any involvement in the whole case. Instead the company which has been accused of soil exploitation, breaking the ecological limits, causing an environmental pollution and civil rights violation has expanded to the Netherlands and Slovakia and plans to spread in many countries of the European Union.

“In a traditional fairytale of Ryaba the Chicken people couldn’t eat golden eggs.We also want to breathe fresh air and to eat regular unpoisoned food.”

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Stop the Persecution! campaign is run by non-governmental organizations Arnika (Czech Republic) and Ecohome (Belarus) with the financial support of the Transition Promotion Programme of the Czech Republic.